


Out of Sequence

by flashwitch



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Mourning, forced family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:35:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashwitch/pseuds/flashwitch
Summary: One, Two, Three, Four.......Six, Seven.The absence of a missing number.





	1. Chapter 1

** ONE. **

Luther blamed himself.

He was the leader. He was Number One. He was supposed to keep the team together. When Five ran out, he should have gone after him. Should have said something.

It was his fault.

He told himself that Five could take care of himself. Five was trained. Five had powers. (It’s not like it was Vanya who’d gone missing). They just had to wait for him to come home.

But Five didn’t come home. Five disappeared completely and utterly. Dad offered a reward, they all went out looking, but there was nothing.

(It was kind of nice for the first day or so, before they all realised he was  _Gone_  not just gone. No one cheating when they raced, no one correcting him, no one making snarky sarcastic comments… )

Luther and Five weren’t as close with each other as they were with some of the others.

(Luther thought Five was a know it all. Five thought Luther was a big dumb monkey. Later Luther would think about whether they would have grown out of that, if they’d been given the chance.)

But that didn’t mean Luther didn’t miss him. He found himself waiting for a quip, expecting Five to pop up, wanting to turn and ask his brother a question.

Dad told them Five was foolish. That Five had jumped and had ended up somewhere or somewhen he shouldn’t, and that they had to move on. He had a portrait painted and that was that. Five was not to be discussed.

Luther followed orders, but he didn’t stop thinking about his brother.


	2. Chapter 2

 

**TWO.**

Diego trained.

When they realised Five was gone, he looked and looked and when that didn’t work, he trained. He did extra sessions in the gym, extra sessions with his knives, he made himself the best he could be.

Because clearly, he was Not Good Enough.

Five left for a reason.

(It’s not like Diego hadn’t thought about it. They had all thought about it, talked about it, fought about it. Running away. Finding somewhere new. But he wouldn’t have left on his own. They were his brothers and sisters. They belong together.)

But Five had left and he hadn’t come back, and Diego couldn’t help but feel a little bit responsible for that.

Better. Faster. Stronger. He can keep the rest of them safe. He can keep the rest of them here.

(What broke his heart was Mom. She kept making too much food, sure Five would be home in time for dinner, stuck in a programming loop. She told him it wasn’t his fault. She told him Five would be back soon. Of course he would be, what are you talking about, Silly? She was sure of it. Any minute now, he’ll come through that door. Diego wanted to believe it, but he was getting too old for fairy stories).


	3. Chapter 3

**THREE.**

Allison knew that she was supposed to be upset.  She _was_ upset.

But she was jealous too. And she hated that. She hated being jealous. She especially hated being jealous of Five. Five was annoying, Five was a pain in the butt, Five was her brother. Five got out, and good for him. Wherever he was it was probably better than here.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t pretend that this was the end of the world. It was sad, of course. And she missed Five. But he would be fine. He wasn’t helpless. He was smart (smarter than the rest of them, that’s for sure), he was quick, he was free.

She had always been able to get whatever she wanted (within reason). She would hear a rumour that their father let her go join a kids theatre club. She heard a rumour that everything in the store was buy one get ten free. She heard a rumour that Allison Hargreeves was beautiful, was famous, was to be envied. It's easy. 

The only thing she'd ever wanted that she hadn't been able to get was to escape. 

And he'd done it. Five had. Not her. Not all of them. Not Luther (not that he would ever dream of leaving home, she loved him but sometimes she wished he had a little more imagination). He had got away. 

(Sometimes she would go and sit in his room. She would close her eyes and imagine he was there. But he never was when she opened her eyes.)


	4. Chapter 4

**FOUR.**

 

Klaus is the only one who knows that Five is not dead.

The others hope. The others believe. Klaus _knows._

Because if Five was dead, he would know, right?

Five would come and see him. Like, if your died and you had a brother who could talk to ghosts, you'd show up, right? Yeah, Five didn't always have time for Klaus, but they were brothers, and if Five was dead, he'd know. He would. He knows he would know. 

He locks himself in one of the bathrooms, one without any of his stashes in it. He lounges in the empty bathtub, towels as cushions and another one as a blanket. He sobers up slowly and waits. Still nothing. Well, there was something. Just not the right something. Hundreds of voices shouting and clamouring, desperate for his attention. How do they always find him?

But no sign of Five. 

He does all the things he knows to do. All the summonings, all the talking to the air, ignoring all the other voices clamouring.

He waits and waits and waits. He waits through Luther pounding on the door. He waits through Diego telling him to come on and come out. He waits through the shakes, through the nausea.

(He’s been stealing Vanya’s pills for over a year, the only way to quiet his brain. He never takes too many from her at once, but a few from each bottle builds up quick. He knows it’s not good for him (what the hell was _in_ those things anyway?) and he does not care. He never wants to be alone with his thoughts, alone with the ghosts that haunt him. But he’s doing it. For Five.)

And nothing.

Five is not here.

Five is not dead.

Which means Five is out there somewhere. Somewhen. Lost.

Klaus laughed until he cried.


	5. Chapter 5

**FIVE.**


	6. Chapter 6

**SIX.**

 

Ben loved his brothers and sisters. All of them. He was closest to Klaus and Diego, of course, but he loved them all. Even Luther.

In spite of everything, they were his family.

None of them signed up for this. They had been babies, tiny fragile things, vulnerable, their skulls not even hard yet, and they had been taken and turned into something else.

Ben knew he was a monster. They were all monsters, but Ben was the sort of thing you told children about to keep them in their beds at night. He knew this. 

And he spent a lot of his time terrified of death. A monster, afraid of dying. Or, no. He wasn’t afraid that he would die. He was afraid _they_ would die.

He used to have nightmares of waking up with blood on his tentacles and bodies scattered around him. Mom said that everybody had bad dreams sometimes. He had always told himself he was being ridiculous, his brother was a Séance, even if one of them did die, that wasn’t the end.

Not really.

But he seemed to be the only sibling with common sense. Luther gloried in the fight. Allison revelled in glory. Klaus was Klaus. Diego tried so hard to be seen. And Vanya, always desperate to be part of everything, even when she knew she’d never survive it. And Five, running headlong into danger, he never seemed to consider that he was not immortal.

But Ben, he was smart. Not as smart as Five, but he was careful where Five was reckless and that had to be enough. He had to be enough. 

He didn’t want to wake up to another sibling dead or gone.

Ben was sad. Ben was scared. But Ben was also angry. He was furious. What right did Five have to go and disappear? To run out on the rest of them? To die?

How dare he?

They were supposed to be in this together.


	7. Chapter 7

 

**SEVEN.**

 

It should have been me.

It should have been me. 

It should have been...

That was the only thought in Vanya’s head.

She was the ordinary one. The dead weight dragging the rest down. She was worthless, useless, baggage to be carried.

Five was special. He was clever and he had powers. And he was kind. Sometimes, when he was trying to figure something out, he would come and sit on Vanya’s bed and listen to her play. Sometimes he would talk a problem through with her as his sounding board.

She had always been isolated. Separate. Apart. But with Five gone, she truly felt alone. 

If she had been special, like her brothers and sister, if she had been a real Umbrella kid, maybe she could have stopped him. Maybe her power would have been something strong enough to keep him at home. She thought about conversations they’d had.

(“If you could go anywhere, do anything, where would you go?”

“That’s easy, I'd play at Carnegie Hall.”

“Well you know how to get there! Practice!” He shot finger guns at her and she laughed in spite of herself, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Very funny. What about you?”

“I can go anywhere I want.”

“OK, anywhen then?”

Five had sat in thought for a long moment. “I want to see the future.”)

She was being ridiculous. She was nobody. There was no way anything she had done could have ever affected one of the others.

Vanya sighed.

(She left out peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches every night for six months.)


	8. Chapter 8

 

**A NUMBER, OUT OF SEQUENCE:**

 

ELSEWHEN:

 

They were dead.

 

They were all dead.

 

 _Everyone_ was dead.

 

Fuck.

 

He had to get back. He had to. He had to try. 

 

He _couldn’t_ get back.

 

Oh fuck.

 

Fuck.

 

 

 

He was alone.

 

 

 

 


End file.
